


Coming Home

by axolotlnerd-campcamp (axolotlNerd)



Series: Rivers And Roads [4]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: But also some good times, Child Neglect, Family :3, Gen, I wanted to do a dadvid fic with Nikki instead of Max, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, NOTE: I edited this a bit to fit in with the rest of rivers and roads!, Running Away, So I've got this!, This is heavily inspired by MicrosuedeMouse's Run Away Home lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 14:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18994366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axolotlNerd/pseuds/axolotlnerd-campcamp
Summary: Nikki’s home life isn’t perfect, but at Camp Campbell, no one’s is. But things could be worse — her mother could have disappeared once again, leaving her alone in the house without food for days now. When Nikki talks to Neil and Max, they decide that the best option is that hardest one: to leave her home. For good.





	Coming Home

The soft hum of rain falling to ground was the only thing to accompany the rising sun until the lightning had kicked in. The early morning light was gray and cold as it filtered through the clouds and into David’s apartment, stretching across the carpet like the tide toward the couch he’d fallen asleep on.

Thunder rolled in the skies high above him, making him stir. Blue light still flickered from the television across from him, and it was a long moment before he realized he must have fallen asleep while watching a movie the night before. The thunder crashed again, louder and sharper, making him sit up to gain his bearings.

It couldn’t be any later than 5 in the morning. He couldn’t quite tell what had woken him up, but he certainly could tell he hadn’t gotten enough sleep, a dull pain running through his head and his eyes begging to close again.

Another clap of thunder, and then a new sound joined the fray. Someone was knocking at his door, lightly but quickly and insistently. 

David sat where he was in his pajamas for a moment, waiting to see if the sound had just been a trick of the mind when if sounded out again, just a bit louder this time.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep off his face as he walked to the door. The person on the other side started knocking again, and when David looked through the peephole, no one could be seen.

_ Strange, _ he thought, too tired to really consider the strangeness of the situation. He opened the door, and looked down to see someone familiar.

She was covered in rain and mud, her green pigtails so soaked that they had lost their curl. Her red sweater was torn at the elbows and fit too largely over herself, and in her arms she clutched a backpack, black with white polka dots. Pink eyes looked up to David, and their usually bright and energetic look had faded.

“Um…” She faltered, looking up at David. She didn’t know where to begin.

“Nikki?” He asked, not fully believing what he was seeing.

“Um.” She said again. “Hi.”

David stared at her, trying to understand. She looked like she’d just crawled out of the river, and then managed to somehow find her way to his apartment. “Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

Nikki’s gaze flickered around his face, analysing him. There was a small open frown on her face, like she’d been surprised he answered at all. “I…” She started, and looked down. “I shouldn’t be here.”

She took a step back, but David put his hands out and stepped forward. “No, no, come in. You need to dry off, what-” He trailed off and shook his head, not sure what to say.

Nikki was hesitant as she stepped into the apartment, looking around as she clutched her backpack. David rushed to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, quick to hand it to her and let her put her backpack at her feet as she wrapped the towel around her, ruffling her hair with it and letting the green curls come back to life. She seemed less tense with the towel around her shoulder, following David while carrying her backpack on the top of her feet, shuffling across the floor.

“What happened? What are you doing here?” David asked Nikki, sitting on the floor as she took a seat on the sofa he had been sleeping on.

“I, uh…” She trailed off, kicking her feet. “I ran away.”

David had gathered that much, but still felt surprised. “Why?”

Nikki shrugged for a moment, seeming hesitant to answer. “Max and Neil helped. My mom’s out of the house a lot, and she was gone for a couple days before I left. When she’s out of the house I usually go to the community center in the town next to us so I can get food, since we don’t keep a lot in the house, and since they have internet there I can message Max and Neil. I told them what was up, and they said I had to leave.”

David felt his heart sink. “How’d you find me?”

Nikki smiled at that, surprisingly. “Max and Neil make an awesome team! Max saw you give your building’s address to Gwen before camp ended and memorized it, and Neil used Google to find it and then find which number apartment was yours. Zoom and enhance, I think he said? They told me which buses to take, so I had to sneak on to them, it was super cool. I had to walk a lot, and then it started raining, so I was cold, but I finally got here.”

David nodded along, trying to process everything. It was quiet for a moment, then Nikki spoke again.

“They said you’d probably know what to do.”

He did not.

“Are you hurt? Hungry? How long were you out there?”

“Well, it’s the 10th today, and I left the day before yesterday around dinnertime, so… About a day and a half?” She said, and it was then David began to realize just how exhausted she looked. “And I’m fine. But I’m starving.”

David nodded, standing up and going to the kitchen. He'd been desperately needing to go grocery shopping, but now was a bit too early for that. Instead, he moved through empty boxes of food, sifting through the neglected trash to find an old, unopened box of Cheerios. Before he went back to Nikki, he grabbed a bowl and filled a cup with cold tap water. 

When he returned, Nikki was more than happy to open the box and start eating Cheerios by the handful, ignoring the bowl that David had brought. He wanted to ask more questions, but he didn't want her to choke while trying to eat and talk at the same time. After a sufficient amount of cereal had been poured into her mouth, she downed the water he'd brought, too. She didn't even have to ask for more, David taking the empty glass and filling it for her. 

She sighed as she finished her second cup of water, smiling and relieved. 

“You're probably exhausted, aren't you?” David asked, exhausted himself. Before Nikki could answer, he continued. “You should get some rest, you've been up for a long time. We… we have a lot to do when you get up. I guess.”

This didn't feel real, to either of the people involved. 

“Do you have something I could use to message Max and Neil?” Nikki asked.

“Oh, right, gosh, they're probably so worried-” David checked his pockets for a second, then realized his pajama pants didn't have pockets, and started fishing around the blanket beside Nikki to find his phone. He handed it to her, and she quickly found the app store to download Google Hangouts. “Gosh, your mother is probably so worried about you, didn't you say she was out of the house when you left?”

Nikki shrugged and looked at the floor. She never looked this impossibly small. “She probably hasn't noticed yet. I'm usually out of the house, and she doesn't get back till late late, so she probably hasn't even noticed anything's off.”

She reached for the box of Cheerios and ate another handful, typing on David's phone. She finished her message quickly, then handed it back to David.

“You can take my bed for now,” David said, pulling a comforting smile even though the last thing he wanted to do was smile. He wanted to throw up. He hadn’t even thought about what life at home had been like for Nikki, and all of a sudden he began to catch onto all of the little things she had said over the summer that he had just never noticed. 

Nikki nodded and rubbed herself off with the towel again, hair bouncing to life now that it was dry. She handed David the towel and grabbed the box of Cheerios, pouring the last of it into her mouth before giving him that, too. She grabbed her bag and David showed her to his bedroom, and all she did before getting into bed was take off her shoes, clinging to her backpack and curling around it on top of the covers.

_ I’m not going back to sleep tonight. _

 

David spent the next few hours of his morning switching between panic and professionalism, trying to figure out what if the world to do. He called his sister — who offered to take time off work to come help, but he refused — and then his mother.

“What do you  _ want _ to do about this?” She asked. “You could apply to become a foster parent, or get one of your family members to take her in. If that can’t happen, she’ll have to go to a foster home, or back to her mother. We’re at a bit of an impasse here.”

David thought for a moment. “I couldn’t just send her to a foster home, and I’m definitely not letting her go back home. She came to me for this, it… I’d feel like I’d let her down. Double-crossed her. She trusted me enough to travel for a day and a half without stopping to eat, to send her somewhere else…”

He looked at the door, remembering how she’d curled around her bag as if to protect it in her sleep. How she’d not even bothered to get under the blanket.

“It would be cruel.”

His mother was quiet for a minute. “Yeah,” she muttered, quiet. “Then I guess you’re gonna become a foster parent?”

“I guess.”

His mom helped him figure out what to do and where to go once Nikki woke up, and he spent the whole morning gathering things he might need once he got to the police station. He made a meager breakfast, just toast and water, and sometime after noon Nikki walked out of his bedroom.

When she woke up at camp, she’d jump up and be ready to go in seconds. Now, she still seemed cautious, still hugging her backpack and looking around as if something was about to pop up from around the corner to get her.

“Good morning, Nikki!” David said cheerily. “Or, afternoon, I guess. Are you feeling any better?”

Nikki smiled, but still held her backpack. “Yeah! I'm still really hungry, though.” David laughed, opening the fridge and pulling out a carton of eggs. At least she was in character again, her appetite as big as ever.

He asked how she liked her eggs — scrambled — and after she finished eating just as ravenously as the night before she seemed to finally be getting comfortable. 

“So, we're going to have to go to the police station soon.” He'd expected her to not like the idea, and she shrunk down again, hands on either side of her and shoulders tense. “I know that you probably don't want to, but we have to explain what happened to them in order for us to get things done. They're probably going to ask what your life at your mom's was like — are you going to be okay talking about it?”

Nikki made a shrugging motion, looking away. “I guess. Do we have to?”

David nodded. “I'm sorry. After we do that, though, we're gonna go shopping for food and clothes for you, so if you want we can do something fun?” 

The girl beamed at him. “Oh, can we go on a hike? My mom lives in downtown of our city, so I don't get the chance to very much!”

“If you're okay with it being a bit muddy, I don't see why not!”

 

David and Nikki both had to deal with people they didn't want to, answer questions they didn't want to. With enough attention to his words, David was able to convince social services to bend the rules for him to become a foster parent immediately, and before long he was told to sit in the waiting room until Nikki finished questioning. 

She was looking at the floor as she walked out, loosely holding her bag to her chest once again. The social worker with her talked to David for a moment, and once he'd finished discussing everything he needed to he was dismissed.

David did his best to brighten her attitude, helping her pick out clothes, and he quickly learned that she wanted to stay far away from the skirts and dresses. She blew a raspberry at one he suggested, and growled at the whole girls clothing section. The only thing from the girls section she picked out was a set of different colored ribbons for her pigtails.

Instead, she favored the old and worn pairs of jeans from the boys section, and picked out a new pair of overalls and lots of plain t-shirts. David also got her a new pair of sneakers, and winter boots.

When grocery shopping, he let her get anything she wanted, and it made her light up. She got as many sugary things as she could, Lucky Charms and popsicles and ice cream and even a big bag of Hershey's Kisses. She wasn't opposed to getting some healthier things, letting David throw in a handful of fruits and vegetables, and when he asked what things she liked for dinner she smiled.

“My mom used to make this really good chicken, she breaded it and friend it and we'd have it with steamed carrots and broccoli. Do you think we could try that?”

For some reason, her saying  _ used to _ made David's heart sink, wondering why she stopped. Wondering what it was that made her stop coming home for her kid.

“That sounds like a great idea!” David said, shaking off the thought.

 

After a brief stop at home to drop off the groceries, David was glad to take Nikki to his favorite hiking spot. It was a good half hour away from his house, but that gave the sun time to dry out the land a bit, and when they arrived the paths weren't as muddy as he thought they would have been.

Nikki cheered as she jumped out of the car, breaking into a sprint and somersaulting on the path to land in the mud, laughing and giggling.

“Careful! You don't want to hurt yourself,” David laughed, and Nikki beamed at him. 

“Do you think we'll see a  _ bear _ out here?! Or maybe a moose? Oh, I saw this big flock of geese yesterday, do you think we might see some?”

David laughed, stepping onto the path just passed her. “Probably!” He said cheerily, and that was enough to make Nikki jump up and run passed him while cheering.

She looked at everything she saw on the path, asking David what the kind of moss growing on the trees was, asked if a mushroom she found was poisonous, asked where the path led.

He was happy to answer her questions.  _ That's actually lichen, _ he said.  _ It's probably fine, but don't eat it. You'll just have to wait and see. _

David hadn't grown up in the area, moving closer to the city for college, and ever since he'd had to find his own places to explore, childhood favorites being so far away. He'd always been drawn to this trail, the path being labelled with red squares and a small sign that read  _ “Robert Frost Trail”, _ with such little foot traffic and another path that branched off with yellow markers instead. Nikki had disappeared when he reached the turn, and he had to call out to her to get her to go on the right trail. 

The path got steep near the end, and Nikki scaled it without breaking a sweat, waiting for David on the top of the rocky crag. Trees had found a way to grow in the cracks of the rocks on the plateau, and with the markers of the path having gone away, she didn't know which was to go. 

David reached her, huffing and trying to catch his breath after rushing to catch up.

“Which way do we go now?” Nikki asked, energy as boundless as ever. She seemed to have completely forgotten about the trip to the police station, and David smiled.

“Just through there,” he said, pointing at a small opening in the trees. Nikki ran towards it, but quickly slowed to a stop when she saw the clearing.

The world stretched for miles ahead of her, autumn forest lining the sides of highways that connected towns like veins to a heart. She could see her hometown in the distance, and the small town next to it she would walk to. Looking around, she could also spot where she had travelled to reach David, the miles she had walked and snuck onto buses stretched out in front of her. As if the world was trying to show her how far she had come, trying to physically recreate the effort she'd expended to find a home.

David walked up behind her, watching her bright eyes flicker across the orange and yellow landscape with awe. “It's really nice, isn’t it? Everyone calls it Red Rocks. I’m not sure why, since the rocks aren’t red, but I guess it’s just a name.”

David took off his backpack, pulling out a thick blanket from his backpack and throwing it down to make a place to sit. Nikki sat down next to him, still looking at the forest out there, at the shade of the fire that had been set to the forest in the mid-September light.

She pointed at the small town to the left field of her vision. “That’s where I lived,” she mentioned, and David’s gaze traced the line of highway that stretched between the town and the place he lived. “And Neil lives further out, the opposite direction I walked.”

David looked around, making a mental map of the area. “Did you live anywhere close to Max?”

Nikki shook her head. “No, he said he lives out in Sulphur Springs. Goes to school in Ashboro.”

David smiled. “See the big hill out that way? Sulphur Springs is right at the base of it, and Ashboro’s on the other side. Neil must live out in the city, right?” Nikki nodded in response. “We should see if we can set up a time for them to visit sometime soon, since you probably haven’t had much of a chance to see them.”

A comfortable silence settled in, the autumn breeze not quite cold but just cool enough to send a chill down Nikki’s spine. She looked out at the view, and maybe because she hadn’t gotten the chance to message them all day, she began to wonder what Max and Neil were doing.

Neil was probably driving to his mom’s like he did every Friday, sitting in the passenger’s seat and telling his dad to stop talking, or at least talk about  _ anything _ other than the school play Neil did the sound work for on Wednesday in order to get a good grade in music class.

Max was probably playing on the old DS one of his foster siblings had given to him before he left to a new home, playing Pokemon Soul Silver again and naming his starter Pokemon something foul.

And Mom… Mom probably came home late last night and fell asleep on the couch. Mom probably left the house when she woke up and figured Nikki was fine, wherever she was. She probably hadn’t even noticed she was gone. She probably wouldn’t notice if she came back, either.

“Hey, David?” She asked, not looking at him.

“What’s up?”

“Am I gonna have to go back to my mom’s?” David looked at her, a little concerned. Her gaze was still trained on the view, but she seemed to be looking through it, not at it. “Neil said that if things go wrong, I’d have to go back. Or that I’d have to go into a foster home, with a bunch of people I don’t know.”

“No, of course not!” David comforted. “I talked to the people at the police station, and they said that I can take care of you. You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. I promise.” Nikki hummed a sound similar to ‘okay’, nodding. With the sunlight at her back, she smiled and turned to David. 

“Can we go home now?”

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This was edited to fit in as a sort of prequel for Rivers & Roads! I'm hoping to continue the series ASAP!


End file.
